FINISHED:
Barakiva, Michael. (2014). One man guy. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.

[Alek Khederian wants nothing more than to spend the summer at tennis camp, but his persnickety Armenian-American parents are forcing him to do summer school so that he can take honors-level courses in the fall.  A whole new world opens up to Alek, however, when Ethan, one of the “bad” kids at school who is also taking summer school classes, convinces him to skip school and take a train into New York, and even more so when Alek finds out that Ethan is gay.  Alek’s discovery and acceptance of his own sexuality happens too quickly, and some dialogue doesn’t ring true (“You two are so cute.  And you’re so lucky.  Gay is so ‘in’ right now.  I’m totally thinking about going lesbo.”), but there are some refreshing turns, like a bomb that Alek’s mother drops about her heritage, and how Alek’s parents respond to finding the two boys alone and shirtless in Alek’s room.   Frequent references to the Armenian genocide expose a brutal history of which many may be unaware, and the novel tackles the complexities that can arise when we expose certain aspects of our identities.  A recipe for stuffed grape leaves is included in this solid tome that deals with its subject matter in a refreshingly non-“issue” fashion. .]

STARTED:
De Angeli, Marguerite. (1949). The door in the wall. New York: Laurel-Leaf/Random House.

[Brushing up on past Newbery winners.]


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